'Real Housewives of New York': Rating the New Wives

While Housewives come and go on these shows, this season of "Real Housewives of New York City" has experienced a major cast upheaval. Out are Jill, Alex, Kelly, and Cindy, with only Ramona, LuAnn, and Sonja surviving the reaping. To provide some new blood (not to mention more drama), the show welcomed aboard Aviva, Carole, and Heather. But can these ladies really fill the shoes of the likes of Jill and Kelly? Well, no one brought out any jelly beans and started spouting off about "satchels of gold" in the season premiere, and there was no screeching of "Bobby" in the most annoying whine ever, so we're skeptical. Here's how the new gals did in their debut effort:

Heather
She's the worst thing to happen to this show since Ramona, which is probably why she and Ramona have already started butting heads. We were originally going to cut her some slack since she seemed to have the business sense to realize that being on a leaflet for the Learning Annex was a bad thing, and we felt a tiny bit bad about her sick son who had a liver transplant, but then she tastelessly dropped the fact that her father died a few days prior in the middle of a party, which is poor form. Her fake speaking of Italian is appalling, her shapewear line is annoyingly named Yummie Tummie, and did we mention she's a hugger? All of that would be remotely tolerable if only she'd just shut up for a second. Here's hoping that she watches these episodes and is self-aware enough to realize that she is a nonstop annoyance who needs to change before the next season (assuming she returns). Then again, Alex never realized how stupid she looked when she got mad, so the chances of that happening are unlikely.


[Related: The Real Housewives: Then & Now (Photos)]

Aviva


We could grow to like Aviva, as we appreciate her positive attitude, but mostly we just know a lot about her prosthetic leg and her Brady Bunch family of children. The most interesting thing about her, aside from her having multiple legs to swap out for appropriate footwear, is that she has a flirty ex-husband who slept with both LuAnn and Sonja, and said ex is currently one of Sonja's besties. That might ratchet up the tension this season, we presume.

Carole


Is she asleep? We were having a hard time telling, but she already appears to be bored and over this show. We applaud people that think they are good for this franchise, but yet deign to be on it in order for publicity, especially if she lords that whole being-married-to-a-prince (who had Jackie O as an aunt) thing over certain people's (cough the Countess cough) heads all season. But she seems to lack the energy to do it. She has written a New York Times best-seller on widowhood, and she's now relegated to interviewing the Kardashians for a living, so there's got to be some backstory we're missing there. But despite the fact that she's barely an entity, she might be our favorite of the new gals, solely because of her stance on parenting talk at parties: "I don't hate kids. I hate when groups of mothers get together and that's all they talk about." If she comes out with a few more gems like that and/or demeans Ramona's obsessive wine drinking in some way, we'll be happy. The quiet ones always seem to go the craziest on this show. Here's hoping.

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